November 30, 2008

Another BCS Screwjob

Here's the scoreboard from the Red River Rivalry between Oklahoma and Texas on Oct. 11 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The score is at the bottom: Horns 45, Sooners 35.

In the end, this was just another meaningless regular season game, brought to you by the Bowl Championship Series. Head-to-head matchups don't matter when it comes to the BCS, whose standings made Oklahoma the winner of the Big 12 South. Unreal.

For those who are against a playoff, this is just the reason we need one.

Comments

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A 10 point win is not much more impressive than a 6 point win.

However, a 44 point win is MUCH more impressive than a 10 point win.

It's unfair, but in this system style points count, and if you can't accept that then you need to get your head out of the ground. I can see no reason why Texas should be in the Big 12 Title game over Texas Tech. I can, however, understand putting Oklahoma in there.

If Texas's win was the result of some kind of suffocating defensive unit I'd be more inclined to agree that they should get in, but OU still managed to score 35 points, eliminating any kind of defensive argument and leaving us with pure offense to look at.

How is this the BCS's fault? I'm all for a playoff, but the three-way tie in the Big 12 South had to be settled some way, and its administrators--not the ne'erdowells at the BCS--settled on the method to do so.

How would it have been settled without the BCS? Record against common opponents is a tie, but average point differential among all teams favors OU, as does point differential in all games involving TTU/UT/OU. So, suggest an alternative.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but if the Texas DB catches an easy interception the play before Texas Tech's winning TD pass, this whole thing is moot. That's a one-play difference between being 11-1 and 12-0, which neither Oklahoma nor Texas Tech can claim.

You still have not proven that the best team wins the playoff most of the time. In fact, assume that a team ranked one spot higher has twice the chance of winning head-to-head, four times against the team two spots away, and so. The chance of the best team winning a four-game playoff is only 63%. Given these are entirely unrealistic numbers, this percentage is actually much lower.

Second, you still have a problem in that the teams decided would still be done by a system like the BCS. Conference tie-ins, a way for non-BCS schools to get in, etc. In order for a play-off to eliminate a selection problem is to have a 16-team playoff (at least). Again, this only decreases the chance of the best team winning. Second, the regular season would almost certainly be shortened, which the school presidents will not want to do.

All Texas had to do was play defense for 1:29 against Texas Tech. The highest-paid defensive coordinator in college football, the heir-apparent was probably on the sidelines dick-slapping Mack Brown's stepson, instead of handling his business. They have no one to blame, but themselves.

I hope Mack Brown's politicking was used against the Longhorns by the voters. It's a seasonal event, Thanksgiving comes with Mack Brown phoning in to ESPN to cry about why they should be ranked higher than they are.

Beating Oklahoma at the Texas State Fair is hardly a neutral site victory.

And then, when the playoff starts, Oklahoma is probably #1 while Cincinnati gets the #8 position. But they already played this regular season - the Sooners destroyed the Bearcats 52-26. What if Cincinnati wins, or the refs blow it? Just because it's a playoff, that means this one counts and Oklahoma's regular season win doesn't?

You can't consider just one game when figuring out the season standings - it's just one game. You have to consider what both teams did over the course of the year. I personally havent watched enough of either team to make that judgement, but those who vote in the polls, coaches, media, and the computers determined that it was OU slightly ahead - although it basically is a tie.

In a game against two evenly matched teams, it basically just goes down to chance. if one team is slightly better than the other, they might only win 53 out of 99 matchups...the more games you play, the better picture you have. If the teams play twice and split their games it doesnt mean that the teams are equally matched, thats just how the odds played out. Just because texas beat oklahoma during the regular season doesnt mean that they deserve to be ranked higher than them. If you want to crown a national champion based on their body of work during the entire season, not just during a 3 or 4 week playoff tournament, you have to take a step back and consider everything that that team accomplished.

How would a playoff determine which team is better? If oklahoma beats texas in a playoff, does that mean that they are suddenly better than texas is?

In the NFL the playoff system basically renders these season matchups moot - a team can drop 2 games to a division rival, and beat them in the playoffs on their way to the super bowl.

You could have the most dominant team in history, which suddenly lost half their starters due to a freak flu virus before their first playoff game, only to lose to a team seeded #8 or #16 or whatever....basically dimishes everything they did over the season. When you boil it down, a huge part of football (and all sports) is just chance. Nothing is a sure thing. No WR is guaranteed to make a catch, not even someone like jerry rice - odds may be close to 100% but there is always a chance of a drop. The more passes he gets thrown to him, the closer the percentage will be that indicates his true ability. You throw jerry rice one pass, he drops the first one, you throw him 99 more and he catches all them.

It's not "fair" to award a national champion over the ability to string together a series of wins over the last few weeks of a season, especially if they only play 1 game. Leagues like MLB, NBA, NHL have a decent system, where you play more than 1 game in a series, but its not practical in football. However it allows these odds to play out and awards the better team most of the time.

If you want to have a playoff, that's fine - you're not determining a national champion, you're just having a tournament - but why bother playing the regular season then.

If you took all 117 or whatever FBS teams and seeded them into one massive tournament, odds are you would not have the "best" team in the land standing at the end. Oregon State beat USC, but I don't see anyone complaining about how Oregon State should be ranked higher than USC.

Case in point for a playoff: The New York Giants were not the best team last year in the NFL. They lost 6 games, which meant that they were at minimum 6 plays away from perfect (assuming all loses were by 7 points or less). The Patriots lost one game, the last one, because of an amazing last-drive play where a player used his helmet to make the catch. The Pats were a holding call away from a perfect season. What was their reward for being the best team through-out the year? Being labeled chokers. Really? That's a good system?

Yeah Wiz, a national college playoff would solve the Big 12 tiebreaker formula. Did you think before you typed that?

The question to be asked is why would the Big 12, or any conference for that matter, use a system that is designed to determine numbers 1 & 2 in the country at the end of the regular season as their conference tiebreaker?

The best and fairest way to do it is like the Big 10. The most recent team to earn an automatic BCS selection is eliminated. That would have ruled out Oklahoma (They've lost three BCS games in a row) and the tiebreaker would have gone to Tech over Texas in a head to head matchup.

I swear, every time I hear playoff opponents argue it sounds dumber than the time before...

Of course a playoff won't determine the "BEST" team. It would, naturally, come closer than a bunch of people voting on it without any set criteria and no requirement or test that they actually have watched any of the teams they vote for.

However, the beauty of an actual playoff is that the outcome is determined on the field of play - not at the ballot box. That's why nobody disputes or argues whether the Giants last year are "Champions" and plenty of people argue about a two-loss LSU last year. The NFL Champion is not the "best" team, or the one who racks up the most "style points". It's the team that, well, got to and won the Championship.

This year, unless some miracle occurs, a Texas team that came within a second of successfully navigating the hardest schedule in college football will sit at home and watch two teams that they defeated by double digits play it out. And if the one they beat on a neutral field by spotting them an 11-point lead in the first half, then outscoring them 35-14 wins out, they'll get to play (and most likely, as usual for them, lose...) in the "championship" game.

All because that team left starters in and ran up huge scores at all opportunities... They really don't have any other argument. You can defend a system that decides this way if you want to, but trust me, you sound like an imbecile...